Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas!

I'm still waiting for presents! Don't worry if you accidentally forgot to send me something in time, I accept presents year round! Just send away!

FFXI has been nice to me recently, got a ton of stuff!

I decided to go do some ENMs, and FINALLY got lucky!

Yay Hagun!




Even Brothers gave me a drop!


Started soloing ISNMs, so that nobody else can steal the only ore drop away from me!


Compliments to the Chef (Talacca Cove) is really easy. Run in, gravity, chainspell nuke. Convert when needed, and keep nuking. My chainspell nuke, assuming no resists, takes it from 100% to 48%.

After that, kite it around using gravity and bind, and bio for damage (it resists poison). You don't want to spam gravity/bind since it builds resist to them. I'd only use one of them at a time, and occasionally use neither. It has pathing problems, so it's easy to kite.


Nuke/Convert when you have MP, and it'll die! Takes me between 12-17minutes to kill on average, so plenty of room for error.




Yay for an ore!

LS did a bunch of SCNMs the other day. Went and solo'd 8/8 of the NMs in preparation.








No good money drops, but oh well!


Hat finally dropped though, and I win!

LS did Ultima. It was actually my first Ultima in about 2.5 years I think. Last Ultima I did was when I got my Nashira legs!



It was so much easier than I remember it being. PLDs surviving Citadel Buster make it so much easier to deal with.

Feet dropped too! Now my SMN is super awesome!


Byakko was nice and gave me a haidate! Go BRD TP gear! Now I just need N abj for super BRD WS!


Fomors haven't been as nice as everything else though. Basically nothing dropping at all.

Really want the MAB/Ele skill feet!

Finally got the kill on Lugh/Ethniu though. Much easier to TP burn.





Also want these feet for PUP/COR TP and BLU Big 3! It was kind of funny, for some reason the THFs had hate exclusively in both fights, and died in both fights.

I did Gulool Ja Ja with a shout group a few weeks ago.


Fight wasn't that hard. 4 RDM/NINs to hold one add each, and then everyone else was for Ja Ja. I think the weird part was what jobs they chose for their DD. Ranged damage would have been the best here, but we only had 1 RNG. We had a DRG for some reason. While he did good damage, being in AoE range was annoying. Oh and we had a BLU/THF which would've been good too, except he was meeleing, which kind of defeated the purpose of Cannonball.

Also seemed to lack healers; I think an extra WHM would've made the fight smoother. Regardless we won!


Don't forget to send me presents!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Mother Globe Duo!


I've been wanting to do this for a while ever since Rotaru showed me a video of 2 JPs doing it! We tried a few months ago, and failed, but came back today for revenge and won easily!

We did it as BLU/NIN (me) and RDM/NIN (Rotaru). I usually don't say this, but I think it wouldn't have worked out at all if my BLU didn't have an excellent MAB build (ie full morrigan's, novio). It might be possible without, but you'll probably need some add-on augments geared towards MAB maybe.

For my nuking gear I used:

Neptune's Staff/Bugard Strap+1/Phantom Tathlum
Morrigan's Coronal/Faith Torque/Moldavite/Novio
Morrigan's Robe/Morrigan's Cuffs/Tamas/Snow
Prism Cape/Penitent's Rope/Morrigan's Slops/Morrigan's Pigaches

Basic strategy is to have the RDM/NIN focus on Mother Globe itself using the typical RDM solo sky strategy: bio/poison/bind gravity when needed. The BLU/NIN is in charge of dealing with the Slave Globes.

I used regurgitation and feather storm to kill the slaves. When they pop, regurgitation. Not only does it do significant damage, but it also binds the target. My regurgitations would almost one shot, and then I'd follow up with feather storm to finish it off. I did occasionally one shot with regurgitation when I used it from behind, since regurgitation gets a bonus when used from behind. It was nice when it happened, but I never planned for it. When the slaves spawn, they will immediately go for Mother Globe's target, the RDM, so you'll want to get it off the RDM as soon as you can.

I think the pull is the hardest part. Since MG actually has all her slaves globes alive with her, you have to kill them during the pull too. In a normal setup, most people use BLM to one shot with Thundaga3. Obviously there's no BLM here, so you'll have to use BLU's own ga3: Maelstrom!



Maelstrom gear is the exact same as Regurgitation gear. From the screenshot above, you can see I did 700~ damage, which is over 100 necessary. I used Memento Mori+ 2hour to be safe.

The RDM should Chainspell utsusemi during the pull too. We got unlucky and Mother Globe decided to cast Thundaga 3, its worst spell, during the pull. Burst or Shock would have been nicer!



I hasted myself via Refueling, and Ro took care of refreshes. MP Drainkiss was VERY kind in this fight; I aspired for over 100 many times.



Only problems that came up were when my regurgitation got resisted. When that happened, Ro finished it off with a blizzard3. This only happened twice in the entire fight though.


Overall I'd say other than the pull it was an easy fight. Ro haxed lot and won the springstone.



But I'll have her failing utsu screenshot on the internet forever! So in the end I win again!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

X's knife solo


Not really new or anything but I did it for fun! Wasn't even that hard, even though I messed up quite a bit.

Only meds I used: 2 charges of my reraise pin (you lose exp in here, sad!), and 2 Tavnazian Tacos. Oh, and 1 echo drop!

Make sure to buff OUTSIDE the BC. Buffs aren't removed when you enter, so you should be fully buffed with rr and full HP/MP when you enter. Once you enter you're going to want to immediately begin the fight.

Elemental Seal>Chainspell>Sleepga>bind the rabbit>nuke Shikaree X down. The rabbit is immune to sleep, so that's why you need to bind it separately. Something to be careful of: X is a BST/NIN mob, which means she has access to Utsusemi, which she CAN use. She did this to me (can see below). If that happens, cast sleepga to wipe her shadows and continue with the nukes. it took me about 600MP of nukes to kill her.

Stupid mithra casting Utsusemi Ni!

What makes this a little bit challenging, is that all sleeps only last for half their duration. So Sleep 1 is 30seconds, and Sleep2 for 45 seconds. More than likely just as use finish X, the other 2, Y and Z, will wake up. When they wake up, Z will Call Wyvern. Its wyvern doesn't have that much HP, and you could probably (and should try) to chainspell nuke it down too. You'll probably need to convert to have enough mp for the wyvern though. I didn't get to do this on my attempt and still won, so if you don't manage to kill off the wyvern with CS, it's not the end.

After the chainspell nuke phase is over, die as fast as possible, let the mobs reset (aside from the rabbit, it won't move at all and that's fine, it won't aggro), get up, rebuff, and wait for weakness.

The nice thing is that the rabbit will now be completely out of the fight until the end, when you need to kill it. It won't aggro/link with the mithras at all, so just completely ignore it. You should only have 2 or 3 mobs to deal with now (depending of if you killed the wyvern during the CS part or not).

Once I was unweakened, and ES timer was up, I once again did ES +Sleepga, then bound+gravity the wyvern(just like rabbit, it's immune to sleep), and nuked it down. I actually got unlucky here and it resisted two of my nukes, so it took longer to kill than it should have; Y and Z had woken up and started hitting me as I was finishing it off.


Can see it resisting me twice in these pics :( Even with all my gear! FFXI and it's random resist generator thing!



Once wyvern was down, I decided to kill Y next. Z is DRG/WHM and has some Magic Defense Bonus, so I figured it would be harder/longer to kill. I basically just kited everywhere and Bio3/Poison2 it to death, with occasional nukes. I think in future fights I'll probably try and be more aggressive here to cut down on time.



Both mobs stop to cast spells often, giving you time to cure/stoneskin/nuke if needed. Bind also lands without the needs for ES, so I used to bind Z, and nuke Y when it was casting on me. Only problem with this is Z casts Blink, so when blink absorbed bind that was annoying. Z also buffs herself and Y with shell2, so you may want to dispel. She can also cure3 when below 33%, but she doesn't do this 100% of the time.

After like 10 minutes of dot/occasional nuke, Y died!


Once just Z and the rabbit are left, the fight is much easier. You can be really aggressive nuking Z down, since you're only fighting one mob now. Make use of ES sleep when you need it, as well as bind. She should die pretty fast.


If you look at timestamps, took me about 3:30 from death Y and Z.

Once Z is down, rest up as much MP as you need (watch the clock), then kill the rabbit.


Sleep doesn't work, but both gravity and bind do, just spam nuke away!


Don't forget to pop the chest to watch your knife not drop!




My time wasn't that great, but still had 2 minutes to spare! It was my first try too, so always room to improve.

I think this is actually a good way to try and get your knife. It doesn't cost any expensive meds, and you don't have to bother others for help every week. If you do have people helping though, I would just try and split up if possible. You can always share lootpools, and it's much better to have 2 or 3 tries at a knife per week, instead of only 1.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Tsola to the rescue!

I was so bored and had some free time so I decided to update!

In LS related news, the LS has gotten a LOT bigger. We went from about 9-10 members total to 19 members in about a month. Wasn't even trying to recruit or anything, just a bunch of really good people decided to apply. I think other linkshells (like AZ) deciding to go social only helped, since people that wanted to keep doing events needed a new LS. I'm not really sure if I like the sudden doubling in size of the LS, but I guess maybe it'll work. Just is a lot harder to organize from a leader a perspective (and a leader that gets lazier to lead everyday...). More drama regarding drops/more schedules to keep track of.

Ok enough about that! Stuff I did:

Dryroot doesn't do einherjar anymore, so I decided to finally spend more ampoules since I wasn't gaining any more of them. I bought Aslan Cape/Gleeman's Cape, in addition to the Buccaneer's belt I bought earlier. More MND/INT for RDM never hurts! I still have enough ampoules to buy 1 more item, but I'm not sure yet. Morgana's looks kind of nice, but so does Omega ring, and Kubira Bead Necklace and Animator +1 (for my super awesome taru PUP!) I guess I still want everything! I've been lazy about finding a new linkshell though; DR's time was like perfect for me because it was just as I got home from work, so I could log on>immediately einherjar>free for the rest of the day. It would never interfere with either FT events, or personal events since it was so early in the day too. I think I might try and join some weekend JP shell maybe, wouldn't be too bad to go every Sunday morning.

More ZNMs!

I tried out SMN on Tinnin for fun. It worked pretty well I think. SMN merit BPs are nice when you cap them.

Grand Fall did 952 every time, which is pretty nice, considering it's hate free. Was nice to be able to DD carefree for once.


I also MBed Thunderstorm! 1147! It made me kind of wish I changed some of my add on augments (particularly ACP) around for Pet: MAB.



Got ok drops:





TP burned Sarameya. Much easier than I thought it would be. Even without a full alliance, you don't need 2hours to do it.




Still no haidate, but we did sell a Sarameya's Hide that dropped (no pic though!).

I finally got to try Sandworm!

It was only Serket, but it was still cool. I guess I was a little disappointed on the difficulty. It didn't seem to do anything special; I kept waiting for some crazy attack and nothing happened! I think the entire fight took less than 10minutes; I'm pretty sure running through Meriphtaud (hateeeeeeeeeee Meriphtaud!) and waiting to get Doomvoided in took longer... I was scared to take hate/miss stun too, so I barely nuked.


Did so much sea, in particular JoL and JoJ over the past 2 weeks.

We did 8 JoJ straight in one night. I've been trying to find people that would want to try and 6man it with me, but nobody ever wants too! So I used our full alliance as a test run kind of! 2 BLM/SCH is by FAR the best way to handle the adds. Parsimony + AM2 one shots the adds, and is far better than having 2 BLMs nuke. Usually 1 of the BLM messes up the timing and you end up getting Mijin-ed, that never happens when you one shot them. Also, SAM tanks destroy Justice. Our kill speed was dramatically reduced over PLD tanks.

Went 1/8 on torque!



JoL is still as boring as ever though. We did get quite a few torques, and a decent amount of Novios though. LS is almost capped (kind of!). So hopefully we'll never have to do sea again for a while.










Did some more fomors. Elatha decided to be nice and dropped my cuffs!


Tried Tehtra once. I used a strategy that was posted on BG about using RNG for DD. I really don't see how that works, unless we were doing something terribly wrong. Half the shots were doing zero damage; nuking was FAR more effective. You just can't nuke while it's casting, or you'll heal it.


We wiped eventually, but I think we could do it if we started as the right jobs from the start. It's probably the weakest in terms of offensive damage of the 5; Slowga is annoying though.

More omegas! Funny drop!


Tanoshii is my new favorite person! Always willing to start (lame) drama for my entertainment!


That's it for now!